Jacksonville Jaguars Fantasy Football: Are You Driving Your Marcedes?

Ryan Lester

Oct 15, 2010

Most people drafted Jacksonville’s Marcedes Lewis as their backup tight end. After three seasons of averaging 36.7 catches for 466 yards and two TDs, there was no reason to consider him a legitimate TE1. After five weeks though, he is the fourth highest scoring fantasy tight end in non-ppr leagues, behind Antonio Gates, Dustin Keller, and Zach Miller.

Nobody is surprised by Gates’ success. He’s is right up there with Tony Gonzalez as the best offensive tight ends to ever play. Dustin Keller and Zach Miller were not among the top eight tight ends taken, but both were on the short list of breakout candidates. Marcedes though, is a big surprise.

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He had just seven TDs in his first 62 games. Who saw five through the first five weeks? I mean he has the size (6’6″, 275) to make him a red zone target, but it’s funny that he was not utilized there until his fifth year in the league.

So the question is, if you own him, are you starting him? That’s the hard part. He’s only had one bad game, and it was a real stinker (3 catches for 15 yards). The rest of the weeks he’s scored 15.1, 7.0, 8.2, and 17.4 in standard leagues and 17.1, 12.0, 10.2, and 21.4 in PPR leagues.

Clearly those are the numbers of a starting fantasy tight end. However, I don’t blame you if you are a little skeptical to trust him just yet. This is still a team that favors the run (165 rushing attempts, 135 passing attempts). Plus, Lewis is averaging just 38.4 yards per game. Three times he’s had 31 or fewer yards. Only one time did he top 55 yards. His season high is 70 yards. His career high is 76 yards, and he’s only had 70 or more yards four times in his career.

So even though he’s the fourth highest scoring tight end, he’s still a risk because so much of his production is dependent on the touchdown. He’s a solid play during the bye weeks, but there are only five of those left including this week. He’s on bye in week nine. I’d look to sell high on him if you can.

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